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Chapter 41: Tantric Methods for Awareness and Non-Judgment

These techniques are helpful only because your intensity is low. If you are really intense, there is no need of any technique; you can be alert. But your intensity is not such. Even with the technique you may start dreaming, and many possibilities are there. The first possibility is that you will not believe that such simple techniques can be of any help. This is the first thing. Then there is no contact. Secondly, you may think that a very, very long process is needed, that it will come gradually. But there are certain things that only happen suddenly, they never come gradually.

I am reminded that Mulla Nasruddin was asked to give his blessings to one of his neighbor’s sons on his birthday. So he said, “Son, I hope you live one-hundred-and-twenty years plus three months.” Everyone was wondering at this “plus three months.”

The son asked, “But why? It is okay - one hundred and twenty years. Why plus three months?”

So Mulla Nasruddin said, “I would not like you to die so suddenly. Just one hundred and twenty years, and suddenly you die? I would not like you to die so suddenly; that is why plus three months.”

But even with “plus three months” you will die suddenly anyway. Whenever you are going to die, you will die suddenly. Every death is a sudden death. No death is gradual because either you are alive or dead. There is no gradual process. One moment you are alive and the next moment you are dead. There is no time process.

Death is sudden; samadhi is also sudden. Spiritual explosion is also sudden. It is like death. It is more like death than it is like life; it is sudden. It can happen at any moment. If you are ready, these techniques can be of help. They will not bring it gradually; really, they will gradually bring you to be ready for the sudden happening. Remember this distinction: they are preparing you so that the sudden samadhi happens.

These techniques are not techniques for samadhi; they are techniques to prepare you, and then samadhi happens. So how you use these techniques depends on you. So don’t think that a very long process is needed, because that may be just a trick. The mind says a very long process is needed so that you can postpone. You can say, “Tomorrow I will do it or the day after tomorrow,” and you can go on postponing forever. A postponing mind goes on always postponing. It is not a question of whether you are going to do it tomorrow; there is only a question because you are not going to do it today, that is all. Tomorrow will again be a today, and the same mind will say, “Okay, I am going to do it tomorrow.”

And, remember, you never postpone for years. You postpone for one day because if you postpone for years you cannot deceive yourself. You say, “It is only a question of one day. Just today I am not doing it; tomorrow I will do it.” And the gap is so small that you never feel you are postponing it forever.

Tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And this mind which thinks in terms of tomorrow will always think in terms of tomorrow. And it never comes, it has never been, it will never be. All that you have is this very moment, so don’t go on postponing. Now we will enter the techniques.